more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing operations. that well consider as a slime a tasty kobe. now illegal capital outflow from russia amounted to over two hundred eleven billion dollars over the last eighteen years that's according to the global

financial integrity organization now illegal inflows and outflows of capital provide the existence of the shadow economy in russia which includes the proceeds of crime corruption and tax evasion now the total of the shadow economy is estimated at forty six percent of russia's g.d.p. pay this figure comes out of the shadows the same week that russia's president vladimir putin introduced a draw floor that restricts investment abroad barring samia officials from holding bank accounts of stocks outside the russian border is now the law is an attempt by putin to fight corruption in his ambition to make russia more investor friendly now earlier today i spoke to jacob nel chief economist for morgan stanley russia about the race of illegal outflow putin's attempts to combat it it's always hard to know how to measure something that is illegal and therefore hitting the

actual number for capital outflows provided by the central bank is much higher for instance last year we know it was about sixty billion dollars the year before eighty billion dollars so much larger number than the ten billion dollars or so that this report is talking about per year. there is a line on the central bank balance of payments called fictitious transactions where people are under reporting imports overreporting exports in order to move funds abroad but some of that may not be. may not be the proceeds of crime what this report is talking about is money that is generated from some kind of criminal activity but is there more to it and so necessarily it's a somewhat speculative number but of course this. agreement that the flows of illegal money are quite substantial and this is an ongoing problem in russia indeed

and that it has come up with a new law department to ban state officials and their family from owning a foreign financial assets abroad is this the way forward in order to avoid such reports tell you out in the future do you think this is the right thing to do going forward where you know money combatting money laundering started out with trying to track drug money and then and then after nine eleven it became more focused on trying to track down terrorists farms and over the years the o.e.c.d. through the financial action task force has developed a sort of manual of best practice if you like and one of the key steps in trying to control the limits of the phenomenon is to make sure that you regulate your banks properly and make sure that all money flows through banks and that is a fact what is the purpose of this law is to try and ensure that money is first of all deposited in

a bank is regulated by the central bank of russia so that the authorities can keep an eye on the flows of money that are happening i think that it's. i think it's a reasonable it's a reasonable requirement from an economic point of view i welcome a liberal capital account like we have in russia which supports investment flows however there's been too much associated flows that have been of dubious origin and i think in so far as the authorities can get the balance right between better regulatory control of illegal flows of money and an open capital account that would be supportive for investment and how we're listing is it the russian government will be able to get some of these billions back. is that a possibility or no let's think money comes into an economy when people feel confident about their property rights and there's

a decent investment climate and they have a prospect of making money making a good return on their money. and so i think the general problem really i would put somewhat differently not will this particular money that went abroad come back but can russia improve its investment climate so that there's more money coming into russia whether it's owned by russians or own part foreigners so that sort of being we recover mint could see investment rising and growth rising in line with its objectives. and moving on that despite posting the biggest gas reserves in the world russia's gas problem is now in the balkan bosket the company's work has dropped by a third in the past year now the cheapest among the global oil and gas majors touch and she's got all the details. yes it's bad news for russia's gas giant gas pumps capitalization on the wall sco stock exchange has reached its law was to

level in three years the company is now worth just over eight hundred billion dollars for comparison the market's capitalization of the most expensive oil company exxon mobil is more than four hundred billion dollars followed by petro china at over three hundred billion shell and chevron over two hundred analysts say the main reason for gas from plunging value is higher taxes the market also didn't like the company's increase in capital investments and its decision to cut dividends and analysts say the re still more room for a downside attention to gas problem made by going to the stinking to the ukrainian transportation seized him and his service and you know he's materializing then there might be an additional don't say. i don't have gas last two years.

is all that an approach with that will be done dose of may be different before gas grow so you can in your system is much. the same price cut. you clean your customers the they don't cite my view which might be bought on the upside analysts say gasper may become one of the most interesting dividend stories globally as the company is now changing its dividend policy market players say that they are betting on the gas boom as a huge infrastructure monopoly with high yielding doodles rather than the upstream production company that is doomed for zero free cash flows for the next several years. russia's leading oil company ross nafta has signed loan agreements to attract over fourteen billion dollars from a group of foreign banks these funds will be used to purchase fifty percent of teen k b p from a all consortium of russian billionaires according to ross net the interest rates

are said to be one of the lowest in the russian market now fifteen foreign banks will be involved including bank of america merrill lynch b m p power by bank of china private check out some eggs the markets will stay with russia and see what happens here now finally managed to see some significant gains here in moscow we've got almost of the same for both the r.t.s. and the my six just and i most of the blue chips actually gains here moscow must say v.t. be the second biggest lender ahead don't more than five percent we had retailer dixy adding more than three percent and that's after reporting a twenty three percent jump in revenues in january so a positive day for see how the ruble got on you can see is indeed makes it managed to gain against the u.s. dollar just lost out to the euro but really just a fraction you can see almost flat not much move at a top of this he will have to europe then the stocks rose actually on wednesday you can see where the euro zone in just two days added some support as was things as

well we had heavyweights general as well as heineken really drawing attention and helping boost stop the mood we had some strong bank of england want to add to the fact that there might be some stimulus on the cards as well so investors are really watching that one as our way wall street than it was a mixed day still going at u.s. consumers they increase their purchases of goods in january bought at a slower pace than the month before analogy suggests that a beginning of the a tax hike partly restrained spending other news as well traveling through the trading floors president barack obama. he's vowed to spend money on infrastructure and environmental spending that came off the union address that we were watching all right that's the markets movie all men here and also you've got an interview with the u.s. foreign affairs clyde had to say that since they with us about i'll be back less

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today i'm joined by mr clyde prestowitz the founder and president of the economic strategy institute he writes for foreign policy affairs and most recently he wrote in defense of nominating chuck hagel for secretary of defense with him we discuss this nomination thank you very much for joining us on r.t. let me start with this why chuck hagel well i think very important is because president obama likes him and trusts him. and thinks that he. do a good job at the defense department i think we have to remember that chuck hagel was an early supporter of barack obama in two thousand and eight when he was first campaigning for president he traveled with obama to iraq and afghanistan at the time. and it's important that he's

a republican and so this demonstrates that the president on the one hand this is able to attract at least some kind of republican support and secondly that the president is able to sell the message through this kind of a point but let's not forget chuck hagel is a veteran of the vietnam war he was a noncommissioned officer in the vietnam war. and as a result of that. he became very very cautious about war. it's he will be the first. non-commissioned officer ever to be secretary of defense i think that's also a very powerful message. and the republicans actually see him as a republican well some republicans do. let me remind you of president ronald reagan who began his career as a democrat and wound up as

a what we call that the time a conservative republican president and reagan always so. that he had not changed his views but that his party the democratic party had left him. i think hagel is in a similar position higgle is what for most of my life people all thought of as a republican it's only in the last ten or fifteen years that the republican party has shifted his view. away from. natural position and so i would say today probably most republicans don't see hagel as a republican but there are still some who do and the previous defense minister if i could say that he was talking about not reducing presence in the middle east yet expanding presence in asia that hagel doesn't seem to be i'm not sure it's completely different i mean as you know from your broad experience here in

washington all of the messages have various audiences. so let's keep in mind that obama when he became elected said he was going to wind down the war in iraq said that he was going to withdraw all eventually from afghanistan and he has been doing that now there are those in the american body politic who are opposed. and so obama has had to be able to carry with him joran is in the congress and in the country and sometimes in building a majority it's useful to have a secretary of defense who sounds tough even if the president's position is not so tough so i shouldn't think we should over interpret that but i think it's important to see hey goal was as a message to various audiences to an american audience to american military audience that the emphasis is going to be less on the military to foreign

audiences the american is the. going to be more interested in talking than fighting . and the particularly i think to two audiences of the middle east that. there's room for cutting deals between america and iran america and other people in the middle east and we saw how iran received that message no meaning hagel how do you see that is do you do you think the u.s. policy on iran will change in the second term of obama having chuck hagel as secretary of the well i don't know if i would say will change because i don't think obama has actually been taking a confrontational line with iran but i think any president in his second term is no longer running for the white house he's running for the history books.

and that means maybe bolder moves the president has more flexibility to take. new positions and so i do think. president obama will try very hard to come to some kind of a more stable arrangement with iran and in the middle east you were talking about messages that obama standing but what is the message that well i think i learned sent to the middle east by choosing by obama is sending the message that he's not the president from israel. that while the united states strongly supports israel and is an ally of israel and it will defend israel that the united states has a broader interest in the middle east and that. he the president obama. is. pursuing broad long term american interests

in establishing a stable order in the middle east one of the issues that people are criticizing haydel for where a lot of the criticism actually comes because of some statements he made in the past namely i am a senator from nebraska not from israel the jewish lobby how do you think that will affect his nomination well i think his statement that he is the senator from nebraska from israel will actually be very positive for him. i think i think most americans will say yeah that's right he should be the senator from nebraska not from israel of course there will be those supporters of israel who interpret it in a negative way but i think on balance that will be a pause a positive i think his comment about the jewish lobby.

because of ursule i don't think it will stop his nomination. but it would have been better if he had said the israel who because there are of course many american jews who don't support. the positions of israel and so by using the term jewish instead of israel it kind of clouded that issue but having said that we also have to be realistic and the fact is that the israel lobby in america is of course very much. composed not only of jews but there are many leading jews who obviously are part of a senator who is now known we needed for defense secretary has to defend himself for saying things like i am a senator from from nebraska and not from israel i how do you this is such a taboo issue it became in the u.s.

that it's untouchable and is this sending a message maybe to other. politicians that maybe this is a subject that i should not even criticize talk about because in the future it will let me know this is a complex complex issue i don't know if we have enough time to for me to explain the top down the peculiar taboos of american politics but. i would say that the this is not unique for example you have to go back in american history so for example there's a large irish population in america and for many many years discussion of the northern ireland problem between. ireland and the u.k. was very difficult in the united states because of the influence of this irish political group in the united states so the israel thing is not unique. you just

have to know that sometimes american paula all politics are strange every country has its place it's secrecy but i think to your question of this is some kind of a message that people have to be very very careful about speaking about israel i think not i think it's the opposite the fact that the president is going to head with this nomination that it probably will be confirmed i think demonstrates that you can. make statements that are not entirely. pure. doesn't stop your career he did say that he supports israel but people don't see that as emotionally well i mean remember that there are people who would like to stop his nomination. politics is a context sport. and there are important people in the united

states who would like to stop him so they're looking for any excuse i mean if he threw chewing gum on the sidewalk they would criticize him for throwing chewing gum on the sidewalk they're just looking for an excuse this is the way they gave it his confirmed and many people said that he will be confirmed pressure do you think there will be on him. oh i don't think there'd be a great deal of pressure on him. of course being secretary of defense is not a small job but i don't think that there will be extra pressure on him as opposed to other secretaries of defense i think there is a lot of resistance to his nomination because there may be agreement between obama and and hable that doesn't mean that there's agreement between obama and senator mcconnell or other important leaders tell me more about this i mean if there is well i mean in the first place we have. in the united states a two party democracy and so the president is the democratic party but

part of the congress is controlled by the republican party the house of representatives and the senate is not controlled by the republican party but the republican party has often blocking power. in the senate. there are also many many other interests there are business interests there are. military interests there are. social interests all of them looking for. budgetary support all of them looking for a publisher they all of them fighting each other for attention. and they look at every nomination the secretary of defense secretary of state they look at all these nominations from the perspective is this going to help me or is this going to maybe not help me if it's not going to help me then maybe i should try to stop it. it's

important to keep in mind that the united states is not a parliamentary system and a parliamentary system the prime minister has a majority and he controls the legislature and he names whomever he wants and the market doesn't work that way the president doesn't control the the legislature. legislature must agree to his nominations he doesn't always get the nominee that he wants so it's much more of a fight within the internal american system than in a parliamentary system. wealthy british style. that's not on my list for. target. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global

economy in these kinds of reports on r t. i never knew adam lanza in person but i was in the same high school as that he was younger than me just a little bit younger. i always thought he was different i always into something funny he rarely talks and you don't use a shy kid. i don't know of anyone who is friends with him i also don't know of anyone who is particularly mean to the what i do know is that it was very clear that this person was not like everybody else. can imagine the level of mental illness that would be present to murder show. america's hero so when you go on this there would be an american bind every tree with a gun. i think for kids growing up in this environment is

good for them at an early age to least see the gun and respect it because they need to know what kind of damage it can do. this is our first task as a society. keeping our children safe. this is how we will be judged. by juggling john. do hack work and get caught when lobbyists money and lawmakers are combined together that's where the problem of corruption comes from. the document's. keep up a smart look. there is also.

another well behind that which is how to influence things situations steer clear of provocations don't answer any question. came into the office and found banners hanging around the office and lots of strange faces around and said what's what's happening will somebody please tell me what's going on and they said oh we've come to occupy your building. possibly they want to do a confrontation possibly they wanted me to ring up the police have the police come in through the mail that didn't seem to me a good idea to. learn the european way with brussels business and in the ocracy it's one person one fault but the brussels business it's one euro one fault.

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